Well, good morning, Munster.
I preach at a lot of different churches, and I don't know if you've ever seen the scenes
where the guy who performs in all the cities, he gets up and he says, okay, Oakland, and
it's like the wrong city.
That's like one of my fears, but it hasn't happened yet.
So my sermon today is going to be titled The Garden of Wheaton, and it's going to come
from John chapter four, verses 31 to 45.
So if you're able, and if you would, would you please stand as we read God's word?
This is coming from John chapter four, verses 31 to 45.
I am reading from the elect standard version.
The ESV, elect standard English.
You see what I did there?
See it?
Okay.
John chapter four, verses 31 to 45.
Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him saying, Rabbi, eat.
But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about.
So the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him something to eat?
Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
Do not you say there are yet four months, then comes the harvest?
Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest.
Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life so that
the sower and reaper may rejoice together.
For here the saying holds true.
One sows and another reaps.
I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor.
Others have labored and you have entered into their labor.
Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.
He told me all that I ever did.
So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them and he stayed there
two days.
And many more believed because of his word.
They said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have
heard for ourselves and we know that this indeed is the savior of the world.
After the two days, he departed from Galilee for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet
has no honor in his own hometown.
So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him having seen all that he had done
in Jerusalem at the feast for they too had gone to the feast.
Now in my stuffy Presbyterian church tradition, after I read the scriptures, I normally say,
this is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
You may be seated.
So the concept of farm to table is foreign in most people's mind, especially in the younger
generations, including mine.
And most people think that food originates in the grocery store, but this just isn't
the case.
The food that you and I eat comes from farmers who labor nonstop seeking people to worship
God.
Most of you are probably saying, wait a minute, he didn't say that right.
Actually I did because the food the gardener is looking for is the fruit of regenerated
Christians who by faith sow and reap what you and I see on the shelves at the grocery
store.
Wait a minute, he misspoke again.
People get your mind off of food for Christ's sake.
I'm trying to talk to you all about the gardener.
I'm going to do this in two points, namely the gardener's function and the gardener's
fruit.
So I've entitled this sermon, the Garden of Weedon, and this is a play on the words from
the original Garden of Eden.
So prior to Adam and Eve sin, God placed the man and the woman that he created in his garden.
He blessed them and told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and to have
dominion over it.
See, God was the gardener and Adam and Eve were the fruit of his garden.
And when the fruit rebelled against the gardener, the gardener plucked up and kicked out his
fruit from the garden and told his fruit, cursed is the ground because of you.
In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.
Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.
You shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it
you were taken.
For you are dust and to dust you shall return.
See the fruit's sin and rebellion against the gardener didn't stop the gardener from
gardening.
It's just that gardening post Eden would no longer be effortless.
It would be laborious.
No more garden of Eden.
Now it's the garden of Weeden.
Now by way of background in verse four, chapter four, we learned that Jesus, wearied as he
was from his journey from Judea to Galilee, he was in Samaria sitting beside the well.
Jesus' disciples then leave to go get him some food and they were probably thinking
to themselves, well he won't go thirsty because he's right next to a well, let's go get him
some food.
Then Jesus on a Tuesday afternoon on site near Jacob's well, he decided to host a podcast
with, you know, amongst all the Jews hostile people groups, his guest is a Samaritan woman.
And to the Samaritan woman, he first reveals that he is the Messiah who has come to save
the world.
For a first century rabbi, this is career suicide.
But ladies and gentlemen, the first principle here, and I've got seven principles, the first
principle here is that endangering your reputation for the gospel's sake is a part of gardening
in the Garden of Wheaton.
Let me tell you why this move by Jesus was career suicide.
First, the Jews didn't associate with the Samaritans because a long standing family
feud between God and the Jews that left them exiled from Israel in foreign lands.
Now in their exile, the Jews intermarried with the nations and the product was half
breeds, half Jew, half Gentile, which in the Jews eyes was a whole mess to be avoided.
Secondly, rabbis didn't openly associate with women in public.
One source said that the sages warned that it's better to stay away from women.
Do not speak excessively with women.
For all women's conversations are lewdness.
Thirdly, this particular woman, she had a thirst disorder.
And this thirst disorder left her with a reputation of sorts of seeking after the wrong thing
to quench her thirst.
Hence the reason why she was at the public well in what was probably the most hottest
time of the day.
Fourthly, the Jews and the Samaritans were not allowed to use the same drinking vessels
together.
Now in Jesus's podcast, he exposes her thirst disorder and embarrassingly, the Samaritan
sidesteps her conviction to talk about what perhaps is the two groups biggest disagreement.
Which church is better?
Is it the Samaritan church on Mount Gerizim or is it the Jews church in Jerusalem on Mount
Zion?
Now in verse 23, Jesus in typical Jesus form, he sidesteps her question to illustrate that
it's not the church that matters.
Rather, the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the
Father in spirit and in truth.
For the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
What's the gardener's function?
Seeking true worshipers who will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
The second principle is here, in the garden of Wheaton, it's the true worshipers that
matter, not the type of church.
We kind of heard that before in the beginning when Pastor Jim mentioned the contribution
of all the cadets from the different churches that they came from.
It's the true worshipers that matter.
Now in verse 27, Jesus's disciples return and they immediately recognize the bad optics
of Jesus's podcast with this Samaritan woman.
Now instead of verbally objecting to Jesus's methods, John tells us that they marveled
that he was talking with a woman.
See Jesus's disciples, just like you and I, needed to see that this is gardening in the
garden of Wheaton.
Let's look at verse 31 to see the gardener's function in this new post-Eden environment.
Now verse 31, Jesus's disciples recover from their Samaritan woman shock and they are urging
Jesus to eat.
Rabbi, eat.
See they have a sense of urgency about Jesus eating so that he can regain his strength
at this halfway point in this journey.
Remember he's going from Judea to Galilee, Samaria is right smack dab in the middle.
Now human beings, they are known for being in one of two categories.
Those who eat to live and those who live to eat.
Now our weight usually reveals what camp we're in.
And I don't know about you, but I genuinely have a weight problem.
I can't wait to eat.
Yes.
See eating is of fundamental importance to the human condition.
In verse 34, Jesus uses the disciples sense of urgency that he eat to illustrate the sense
of urgency he has in fulfilling the gardener's function.
My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
To the Christian, sharing the gospel is of fundamental importance for man shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
Now these familiar words come from Moses.
Notice what he said to the Israelites in Deuteronomy as they were getting ready to go into the
promised land.
And it's the same words that Jesus used as he was being tempted by the devil.
See the word of God is to the Christian as food is to the human.
More specifically, the gospel is to the Christian as food is to the human.
For the gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all who will believe.
Now if the gardener's function is to seek true worshipers, then the gospel must be the
driving force by which he gets his reward.
Oh, and God will get the reward for Christ's sufferings.
Part of that reward is us sitting right now in this assembly.
The third principle here is gardening in the Garden of Weedon requires a sense of urgency.
In verses 35 to 38, Jesus leans more into the gardener's sense of urgency with the harvest
analogy.
Now the disciples, they would have been familiar with this harvest analogy.
That's why Jesus says, do you not say that there are yet four months, then comes the
harvest?
You see the sense of urgency in the second half of verse 35.
Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest.
This time is a joyful time, especially for those of us with a weight problem.
It's a time when one literally gets to see the fruit of their labor.
One commentator stated that grain when ripe, it turns from a green to a yellow to a light
color indicating that it's time to reap it.
A white harvest indicated a ripe harvest.
And when the sower sees that the harvest is ripe, then it's time for the sower to reap
what they have sown.
In the gardener's garden, there is no room for grim reapers.
See what I did there again?
You guys gotta keep up with me.
In the gardener's garden, there is no room for grim reapers.
See Jesus sowed the gospel to the Samaritan woman.
The gospel to her was the assurance that she would ultimately find what she looked for
in Jesus and not in another illegitimate relationship with a man.
The woman's joy was seen in her sense of urgency to share the gospel in verse 28 when she left
her water jar at the well and went away into the town and said to the people, come and
see a man who has told me all that I've ever did.
Can this be the Christ?
See Jesus knew the Samaritan woman's joyful testimony was set to harvest in motion, so
Jesus prepared his disciples to get to reaping.
The fourth principle here is gardening in the garden of Wheaton requires joy.
Now verses 37 and 38, Jesus then reminded his disciples that they weren't laboring
in a vacuum.
They were laboring along those who came before them, kind of like Pastor Jim said with the
cadets and all the former cadets that stood up.
These little kids, these little boys are standing on their shoulders and that's what we're doing
as Christians.
See the gardener's function requires a collaborative effort.
In the parable of the vineyard owner, Jesus mentions all the prophets that God sent to
the Israelites to bring back the fruit of Israel.
That's God's vineyard.
Now the tenants who were supposed to be working the vineyard, they were supposed to be working
and producing the fruit, but they dealt harshly with the ones that God had sent and they even
killed the owner's son.
See those Old Testament prophets that God sent, it broke the ground to create the conditions
needed for the seed of the gospel to penetrate and to bear fruit.
John the Baptist says, prepare ye the way of the Lord declaration along with the other
prophets messages that came before him.
That was that industrial gray tiller that broke up the rocky soil of the hearts and
minds of those who would receive the gospel and respond with joy.
So you can never discount the effect that another Christian's faithful gospel witness
has had on a particular person or area before you came on the scene.
See, what looks to you as a hopeless situation could be a ripe harvest in God's eyes.
My wife is a fourth and fifth grade school teacher in Chicago Heights at a low income
school and she tells me all the stories about these kids' families and their backgrounds
and their disadvantages and their poverty and the bad things that's happened to them
at such a young age that most people don't even experience at all in their lifetime.
But you know what, I have to look at her and say, you know what, you have to be the light
in that environment.
You never know.
There may be a ripe harvest within your midst.
Some of us need to realize that when we go to our jobs tomorrow, you're the light, you're
the salt, and the harvest may be ripe where you are.
The fifth principle is that gardening in the Garden of Wheaton is a collaborative effort.
It is through this collaborative effort that we recognize not only our dependence on Christ,
but our dependence on each other.
Well how did the harvest that Jesus was speaking of, how did it manifest itself?
It manifested itself in the gardener's fruit.
And that's my second and final point.
See, I figured if I gave you two points, you would think it would be a short sermon, but
I built in seven principles to trick you into it being a long sermon.
And it's not my fault, it's your pastor's fault for giving me seven chapters to preach.
That's okay.
We're gonna work through this.
Now the gardener's fruit, they are those who have ears to hear the gospel, they gladly
receive it, and they live lives of gratitude in light of what Christ has done for them.
The gardener's fruit are those who worship the Father and Spirit and in truth.
Oh, and the gardener's harvest, it's glorious.
It's glorious.
It'll consist of a manifold variety of Jews and Gentiles, people from all nations, tribes,
peoples and languages.
The gardener's fruit is the true rainbow coalition.
Those people don't know.
Thank you.
Okay.
All right, I told you you gotta keep up with me.
In verse 39, we have a history lesson of the first Samaritans.
This is the first semi-Gentile group to bear fruit under Jesus's ministry, and it's all
because of that Samaritan woman's testimony.
Many Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman's testimony.
Now see, this is extraordinary, especially considering a woman's testimony was not considered
credible, not to mention the deplorable customs and ways in which women were treated.
Nevertheless, in verses 40 to 42, John tells us that the woman's joyful testimony was the
bridge that encouraged many other Samaritans to receive Jesus in their own town.
What caused this woman to testify about her podcast encounter with Jesus?
First, she had an encounter with Jesus.
Then her Jesus encounter gave her boldness.
Then she truthfully testified to her encounter with Jesus to her other Samaritan folk.
Now in this case, if any of those elements were missing, the woman's testimonial impact
may have been lessened, but her faithful witness caused the other Samaritans to at least give
Jesus an audience.
Now after the other Samaritans witnessed firsthand what Jesus had to say to them, they too believed
that Jesus was indeed the savior of the world.
The sixth principle here is that gardening in the Garden of Wheaton takes an encounter
with Jesus and the faithful testimony of only one person.
Now on the Jewish front, the Samaritans, they were the Gentile fruit.
This is the Jewish fruit.
So on the Jewish front in verse 43, Jesus is likewise received well by the Galileans,
but because of having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast.
See Jesus's wonderful deeds at the Canaan wedding, remember when he turned the water
into wine.
At the Canaan wedding, so that manifested his glory.
It caused his disciples to believe in him and when word spread, it caused the Galileans
to welcome him warmly.
I felt that same warm welcome when I came in here.
I shook about 37 hands.
The worship leader told me to kick the devil in the throat.
It's been great.
My time here has been wonderful.
See this was not the case in Jesus's own hometown of Nazareth.
See there Jesus's gospel witness caused the Nazarenes to want to throw him off of a cliff.
For the Samaritans, it was Jesus's clairvoyance that led him to believe that he was the Messiah.
For the Jews, it was the signs that he did that led them to believe that he was the Messiah.
But either way, Jesus was a man who was motivated to eat, to fulfill his father's will.
The seventh principle here is in the garden of Weeden, your deeds follow you and determine
how others will receive you.
Now this brings me to the centrality of Jesus.
See Jesus, the Christ, is God, the gardener's son.
Now Jesus as the only begotten son of God, you guys did this one before, Jesus as the
only begotten son of God, he is one essence with the Father.
Meaning he is so intimately intertwined and in tune with the gardener that the gardener's
will is also Jesus's will.
Thank God for that.
See Jesus is fixated on bearing witness to God's truth and seeking out and saving the
true worshipers that the Father elected from before the foundations of the world who will
worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
Well what is God's truth?
It was right there in John 3 verses 17 and 18.
For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the
world might be saved through him.
The believing ones are not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already
because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God.
That's God's truth.
And theologians they call Jesus's fixation on fulfilling his Father's will, they call
that his active obedience.
See that's Jesus willingly going where the Father tells him to go, saying what the Father
tells him to say, and doing what the Father tells him to do.
That is something that none of us in here can do or is willing to do.
Thank God for Jesus.
Now see when Jesus is actively obedient on our behalf according to his Father's will,
God receives glory in Jesus's works.
In exchange Jesus receives joy in fulfilling the Father's will.
This brings me to us, us glory robin, glib egomaniac gardeners, whose glory is our shame
and our God is our own sinful appetites down here in the garden of wheat.
How are you representing the gardener?
I'll tell you how we're doing by going through those seven principles that I mentioned earlier.
And after being up here now I wish I had seven more.
Do I have enough time?
No?
Okay.
All right.
Well, see the first principle of gardening was endangering your reputation for the gospel's
sake.
How are you doing with that?
See in our family devotions, my wife and I are always harping on our children to be salt
and light in your public schools.
But when my oldest son comes to me after Calvinist cadets and he says that he wants to hand out
tracks for his Valentine's Day gifts, my first thought was, uh oh, I wonder what the other
kids will say about him.
In that split second, I was concerned more about my kid's reputation than my son fulfilling
the gardener's function of seeking the true worshipers who will worship the father in
spirit and in truth.
I know what kids my age said.
I remember how cruel they were.
But if I were to tell my son, no, don't hand out the tracks, now I will have effectively
been speaking to him out of both sides of my mouth.
And what kind of confusion is that for a kid?
Share the gospel.
Don't send the tracks.
Share the gospel.
Don't send the tracks.
How many times have you been in crucial situations in which you've had the opportunity to speak
to that coworker, that family member, your friend, your spouse, or your significant other,
but you held back because you were concerned about your reputation?
The second principle of gardening was that it's the true worshiper that matters, not
the type of church.
How many of you have emphasized faith in Christ over church favoritism?
How many of us have attended church all our lives and grown so used to seeing the same
people and you're comfortable with them that when new people come into the church that
don't look like the ones you're comfortable with, you have a problem with that?
Have you ever not shared the gospel with somebody because they don't look like you?
Are you opposed to sharing the gospel with people who don't look like you?
Does your local church idea, does that eclipse the universal church?
You know, the universal church is believers from all times, everywhere.
See, the third principle of gardening was having a sense of urgency.
Do you have a sense of urgency when fulfilling the gardener's function or have you been coasting
along all these years because you know that your ticket to heaven has been stamped?
The fourth principle of gardening was joy.
Are you a joyful sower and weeper or are you a grim sower and weeper?
Reaper.
Well, if you're grim, you're a weeper too, so I mean, of course, like, come on.
Did you know that your joy in the Lord is directly linked with your submission to his
will and the rewards that come from the guaranteed fruit that you help bring in?
When you share the gospel with somebody, it is guaranteed that if they are the father's
elect, they will believe.
And that is the joy that frees you at that moment when you feel clamped by all the regulations
and rules of this world to hold in the fact that you believe in Jesus.
It's liberating.
Are you more motivated by the temporal rewards that you receive at work, school, and play
over the eternal crown of life that goes to those whose soul win?
And when you receive that eternal crown of life, you know what you're going to do with
it in heaven?
You're going to lay it at the master's feet.
The fifth principle of gardening was that it's a collaborative effort.
Are you burned out because you've been going at Christianity all alone?
I know I feel like that sometimes.
Lord, there's only me.
There's only me.
I have reserved for myself 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to bail.
It is not only you.
Are you isolating yourself because you're afraid of church hurt?
Now, see, church hurt is a legitimate thing.
I don't want to downplay it.
It's real and it affects us all at some point in our lives, especially for the ones who
take the gospel seriously.
But isolating yourself because of church hurt is unbiblical because Christians are communal
people.
God has called us to come together in the assembly.
If you are a communal people and your brothers and sisters are the actual lifeblood that
Christ has designed for his church, then it must be true that Christians who isolate die.
We die in isolation.
Are you too prideful to ask for help?
Do you attend Sunday school to be educated on the primary principles of the faith?
You know, the ones that help you overcome those age old rebuttals and objections that
people of all ages have had in response to the gospel?
That's what Sunday school is supposed to do.
Sunday school is to make you acclimated with the rejections that you will receive in the
world, kind of like a door-to-door salesman has rebuttals for when you're going to say
no.
Well, did you know that no?
Okay.
Well, did you know that no?
See, the sixth principle of gardening was having an encounter to Jesus and faithfully
testifying to that encounter.
Have you had an encounter with Jesus?
Or are you just playing church?
Are you faking it till one day you hope you make it?
See, sometimes believers can spot a phony.
Sometimes they can't, but no one is fooling God.
Phony believers do not be deceived.
God is not mocked.
Whatsoever one sows that he shall also reap for the one who sows to his flesh.
I would insert the phony believer in there.
The one who sows to their flesh will reap from the flesh corruption, but the one who
sows to the spirit will reap from the spirit eternal life.
The seventh principle of gardening was your deeds follow you and determine how others
will receive you.
Now, with this principle, it's almost impossible to control and determine how others will receive
your faithful witness.
But it is possible to control what it is that you do in the midst of others.
Do you have an accountability partner or someone who loves Jesus as much, if not more than
you, and they're speaking into your life about your actions?
Or are you too prideful to have someone else tell you when you're wrong?
See the purpose about us being in community and having each other's backs is that we all
have blind spots.
I can see what you can't see.
You can see what I can't see.
Are you a rogue Christian who appreciates gossip and shock value more than making it your goal
to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands?
See these principles are all things that we struggle with here in the flesh and we would
be sunk were it not for the example of the person and work of Jesus Christ and his indwelling
spirit in our lives.
Christian, if you have the Holy Spirit indwelling you, then keep your hand to the plow.
Keep your hand to the plow.
The gardener sees you and he's going to come alongside you and he's going to take your
burdens and he's going to give you his joy and he's going to make your gardening light.
Look I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest.
Unbeliever, the gardener sees you too, but not in the same light as the Christian.
You are under the wrath of God and in need of the saving work of Jesus Christ on your
behalf.
Turn from your wicked ways and believe the gospel and may God give you the eyes to not
only see the harvest, but the coming judgment day when Jesus and his angels will separate
the wheat from the chaff.
That's the phony from the genuine.